Amanda Scott (23 page)

“Upstairs?” the man repeated doubtfully, glancing upward and flushing even more when he caught sight of Margaret and Kingsted at the gallery rail. “Well, I dunno, m’lord. Ain’t there—”

“It is quite all right,” said Abberley with a wry smile. “We were just about to have tea, and you will no doubt be grateful for a mug of ale. Moffatt, in the drawing room at once, if you please.”

“See here, Abberley,” said Jordan, stirred at last by the indignation of seeing his assailant treated as a guest in the house, “you’ve no business to be inviting the man up to the drawing room. When you hear how he’s treated me—”

“You’d best come up, too, I suppose,” the earl drawled as if the notion had just occurred to him. “You may go, Farley, and take Mr. Tuckman’s shotgun with you to the stables, if you please.”

Jordan sputtered, but when Abberley, a solicitous hand under Mr. Tuckman’s huge elbow, merely turned his back, there was nothing for the young man to do but follow. Margaret and Kingsted, turning quickly, preceded the others into the drawing room, Kingsted muttering irrepressibly that all the best seats would be taken if they didn’t make haste. Margaret found herself chuckling as she entered the room.

“What is so funny?” demanded Lady Celeste. “Where’s Abberley?”

“Just coming, ma’am,” said Kingsted, frowning with mock fierceness at Margaret before turning with a grin to reclaim his seat at the card table opposite Miss Maitland. “High entertainment approaches, or I miss my guess,” he told that young lady
sotto voce
.

Abberley entered with Mr. Tuckman just then and began to make introductions, treating the man with calm civility. The innkeeper was clearly taken aback by all the courtesies, but when Jordan entered the room behind them, a sulky scowl on his face, Mr. Tuckman recovered himself quickly.

“It be pleased I am ter make yer acquaintance, yer ladyship,” he said to Lady Celeste, “but I didn’t aim ter be speakin’ ter no ladies, ye know. An it please yer lordship,” he added, turning back to Abberley, “this business be best attended in private, an ye take m’ drift, sir.” He grimaced and made an awkward gesture that encompassed the three ladies in the room.

“Send him away, Abberley,” Jordan muttered. “It is my affair, not yours. I’ll attend to it in my own good time.”

“Ah, ye will, will ye?” said the innkeeper, arms akimbo. “Like ye attended t’ me daughter, I expect. Aye, man, affairs be the word fer it, belike. But I’ll attend t’ ye, me broad laddie, not turnabout. Ye’ll do right by the lass, ye will.”

“Mr. Tuckman—” Jordan began testily, but Lady Celeste’s indignant voice cut him off.

“Good grief, Jordan, what have you done to the gel?”

“Ah, Moffatt,” said Abberley at the same time, as the butler entered, carrying a heavily laden tea tray, “come in, come in. Here is your ale, Mr. Tuckman. Won’t you have a seat?”

Jordan turned away in disgust, and Mr. Tuckman seemed dismayed rather than gratified by Abberley’s invitation.

“As to that, m’lord, please believe I be flattered by yer condescension, but I knows me place—”

“Fustian, Mr. Tuckman,” interrupted her ladyship as Moffatt set the tray down before her and turned toward Tuckman with a mug of ale. Lady Celeste went on sharply, “Sit yourself down, man, and give us a round tale. What has that rapscallion Caldecourt done to your daughter that hadn’t been done to her before?”

Accepting the mug of ale with both hands, Tuckman sat hastily before Lady Celeste had finished speaking, but her last words brought him upright in his chair with righteous indignation. “Me daughter’s a good lass, ’n there be none t’ gainsay that, m’lady. She never strayed afore this …this jackanapes done ’er wrong.”

“Did you, Jordan?” inquired her ladyship curiously. “Do her wrong, that is?”

“Is this absolutely necessary?” demanded Jordan angrily. He glared at the earl. “I fail to see what business this is of yours, my lord, or of Lady Celeste’s or any of these other people.”

“But we are fascinated, Jordan,” Margaret said sweetly. “My favorite part of any play is the farce. Surely, you wouldn’t deny us a part in all this. Everything has been so dull hereabouts until now. Have you not said so yourself any number of times?”

“That’s enough,” said Abberley, but he was clearly struggling and not nearly in such command of himself as he had been when he had said the same words below in the hall. Still, everyone turned to look at him now, just as they had before, and when he turned his attention upon Jordan Caldecourt, the look in his eyes was stern. “Having brought the matter to our attention the way you did, sir, you made it the business of everyone here. If you wish such matters kept private, then you must make it your business to see that they remain so and refrain from engaging in brawls that wander from the stableyard (where such activities belong if they belong anywhere) into a proper house.”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea to do such a thing,” retorted Jordan, incensed. “I thought the matter
was
private until Tuckman here leapt on me the moment I’d dismounted and tried to hold me up at gunpoint. No man has to stand for such a thing. But when I tried to wrench the weapon out of his hands, he jumped me and well nigh bashed my head into the ground.”

“I come t’ see justice done, is all,” said the innkeeper stubbornly. He swilled ale as though to punctuate his words, but when Jordan had not said anything further by the time he’d swallowed half the contents of the mug, he looked at the others and explained, “Follered ’im all the way from Royston town, I did. Wanted ter be certain sure I knowed who ’e was.”

“And the shotgun?” Abberley asked gently, shaking his head at Lady Celeste, who was pouring out tea and had raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction. Though she nodded dismissal to Moffatt, that worthy moved only so far as the doorway, clearly reluctant to leave so interesting a scene.

Tuckman took a swallow of ale and cleared his throat noisily before answering Abberley’s question. “Wanted ter see ’e did right by me daughter, is all. But all them others got into the scuffle, ye see, ’n the lad here run up ter the ’ouse. I tried ter fight off t’others afore I come after ’im, but they wouldna leave me be.”

Lady Celeste, no longer looking the least bit sleepy, cocked her head a little to one side and asked curiously how it was that Mr. Tuckman was so certain Jordan alone was to blame for his daughter’s ruin. “For, although I do not mean to offend you, Mr. Tuckman, it has been my experience that a gel who will … that is, one who—”

“It was no doing of Mandy’s,” said Jordan suddenly. “I still cannot see that any of this is the business of anyone but myself and her father, once he manages to calm himself, but I won’t have you saying things like that about Mandy. What happened was my fault, not hers. She is a good girl, just as Mr. Tuckman says she is, and I seduced her. He’s right about that, too, and right to say I was a heel to do it, and right to come after me with a shotgun, and—”

“Jordan, no!” shrieked Lady Annis, who had approached the open doorway unseen by the others because of Moffatt’s bulk upon the threshold. At her cry, the butler moved hastily aside, and she plunged into the room, coming up short before her angry son. “What can you be saying? Why are all these people here, making all this row? What on earth have you done?”

Jordan glowered at her. “I’ve seduced an innocent girl, that’s what I’ve done. And her father says I must marry her, though I cannot see what concern it is of yours any more than of anyone else’s.”

“No concern of mine? After all I’ve done for you? After all the risk and botheration? You merely go out and seduce some common trollop without so much as a thought to your future or to your mother’s precarious health? Oh, my God, seduced!” She seemed to be approaching full hysterics, for her voice had risen from that first shriek into near banshee wailing. Margaret had stepped forward to attempt to calm her, when Lady Annis gave one last shriek and began flailing her arms and fists at her son. He had no sooner lifted a forearm in self-defense, however, than she clutched at her breast, gave a much weaker cry, and slumped at his feet.

Pamela jumped up from her chair and rushed to kneel at Lady Annis’s side, feeling expertly for the pulse in her wrist.

Kingsted, at a more leisurely pace, followed to inquire in an interested tone if her heart had stopped. “Couldn’t go the pace, I expect,” he said.

Pamela shot him a furious look. “If you would be so good, my lord,” she said in measured tones, “as to procure a cold cloth and some smelling salts or burnt feathers, your presence here will be all the more greatly appreciated.”

“Didn’t think she was dead,” he said, satisfied.

“Of course she isn’t. How can you be so unfeeling, sir? She has suffered a great shock. Abberley, since his lordship prefers to stand like a stock, will you help me put her on the sofa there, please?”

The earl moved quickly to help her, although he, like Margaret and Lady Celeste, had been staring oddly at Lady Annis since nearly the beginning of her outburst. When Pamela glared at Kingsted again, he moved at last to assist Abberley, turning first to Moffatt with a curt demand that he do as the lady said. “Get a cloth and them feathers or whatnot, man!”

Lady Celeste spoke for the first time. “If Annis hasn’t got a vinaigrette by her, it must be for the first time,” she said calmly. “Look in the pocket of her gown, Pamela. ’Tis a cut-crystal bottle.”

“I know,” said Pamela, searching. “Here it is. Come, my lady,” she murmured, putting a solicitous arm around Lady Annis’s shoulders, “breathe deeply. Ah, I think she’s coming around already. Steady, Lady Annis, you merely fainted.”

Her ladyship stirred uncomfortably and reached for her breast. “M-my heart,” she moaned weakly. “My palpitations, oh, what is to become of me?”

“Shhh,” said Pamela, taking the cloth that Moffatt was now offering her and laying it upon her ladyship’s brow. “You must breathe deeply and evenly now, my lady. Your heart is fine. Your pulse is very strong, you know.”

Lady Annis glared at her from beneath the damp cloth.

“I’ll wager she don’t thank you for telling the world she’s got a strong pulse,” Lady Celeste put in acidly. “What was all that chat about risk and botheration, Annis?”

Margaret exchanged a glance with Abberley. Neither had missed Lady Annis’s words, and they, too, wanted to hear how she would answer that question.

Lady Annis moaned again, then began to complain in distracted tones. “Where is my woman? Send for Wilson at once. Oh, I must rest. I should be in my bed, truly I should. Someone must assist me to my bedchamber.”

“In a moment, my lady,” Abberley told her. “First I should like very much to hear an answer to Aunt Celeste’s question.”

Jordan had not moved from the place where he stood while his mother railed at him. Now he said fiercely, “What can you be talking about, Abberley? Cannot you see that she is distraught, that she needs rest? For God’s sake, man, get her out of here.”

“In a moment,” Abberley said. “I believe you ought to hear what she says, too, young fellow. If I’m not much mistaken, I was wrong about you.” He turned back to the woman on the sofa. “Was I not, my lady? You see, we thought Jordan was responsible for the odd things that have been happening lately.”

“What things?” The voice was still weak, but Lady Annis’s eyes had focused sharply and steadily upon the earl.

“Abberley,” warned Margaret, looking pointedly from Tuckman to Moffatt, “not here, not now.”

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “Lady Annis, I believe you know what I mean, and I’m persuaded that you would be as loath to hear the details repeated to you here and now as Margaret and the others would be to hear them. If you admit your responsibility, however, and promise me that nothing further will occur, I will do my possible to see that your son gets out of this bumble broth with a whole skin and with at least the shreds of his reputation intact.”

Lady Annis sighed and looked away. “Help him, Abberley. Whatever I may have done, I did for him, and he doesn’t even care. I shan’t apologize.”

“You admit your guilt, however?”

“As you wish.” She would not look at him, nor would she respond to anything Pamela Maitland said to her.

Abberley nodded. “Leave her be, Miss Maitland. She will recover more quickly if she is left in peace. Mr. Tuckman, I am prepared to discuss the ins and outs of this affair with you at your convenience, but I can see no further reason to do so with such an audience. Perhaps you will come downstairs with me now to a private room.”

“See here, Abberley—” Jordan protested.

“You may come, too, if you like,” the earl told him kindly. “I shall do nothing that does not meet with your approval, but since I regret my misjudgment of you most sincerely and since I realize you do not possess the financial wherewithal to conduct this sort of affair properly, I am prepared to disburse whatever sum is necessary to see you safely out of it.”

“I cannot let you do that,” Jordan said stiffly.

Abberley’s eyebrows rose to high peaks. “Dear me,” he said, “I hadn’t thought the impropriety of accepting money from me would affect you so strongly. It is your affair, sir, but I promised—”

“Impropriety be damned, my lord! I collect that you mean to buy off Mr. Tuckman.”

“Buy me off?” demanded that worthy in high dudgeon. “I’d just like t’ see the day. Ain’t no man’ll put a price on me daughter’s honor me lord, beggin’ yer pardon fer the offensive nature of me speech, but no man kin spout such claptrap ter me.”

“Gently, Mr. Tuckman,” said Abberley.

“Puts a rub in, don’t it?” observed Kingsted, who had returned to his seat. His eyes were twinkling again.

Abberley silenced him with a glare and turned his attention to the indignant innkeeper. “Mr. Tuckman, please believe I meant no offense to you or to your daughter, but surely you must see that she cannot marry Mr. Caldecourt.”

Jordan muttered something, but no one paid him any heed, for Mr. Tuckman had leapt up from his chair and was advancing ominously upon the earl. Margaret gasped in dismay at the murderous expression on the huge man’s face. Surely he could squash Abberley flat with one of those hamlike fists.